


through dirt and shadow i grow

by BellumGerere



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, FebuWhump2021, First trial, Origin Story, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellumGerere/pseuds/BellumGerere
Summary: The last thing Claudette remembers is standing at the bus stop, and now - she doesn't know where she is.
Relationships: Claudette Morel/Meg Thomas
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lord help me i'm back on my bullshit
> 
> this might not entirely line up with canon but let's be real when have i ever cared about that lmao. this is another febuwhump one, the prompt was "who are you?" -bel

The last thing Claudette remembers is standing at the bus stop, pacing back and forth in front of an empty bench, relishing in the warmth from the heat lamp whenever she walked directly under it. It’s late at night, and the fog is creeping in, curling in tendrils around her ankles, but nothing about it seems unusual to her. She fidgets with the cord of her headphones as she walks, feels the reassuring weight of her bag on her shoulders and back, and then—darkness, all-encompassing, pressing so close that she can scarcely breathe for it. When she can see again, blinking against the dim light and pushing her glasses up on her nose, she doesn’t know where she is.

It’s certainly not anywhere she’s been before; she thinks she would remember a place like this, crumbling walls on three sides and, on the fourth, some kind of—meat hook? She takes a step back when she sees it, dread rising in her throat. Her backpack is gone, as is her phone and the earbuds that had been plugged into it; even the pens that had been shoved into her pocket are gone, leaving her with only the clothes on her back. All she can hear is the whistling of wind through the cracks in the decrepit walls and the sound of her own too-heavy breathing, ringing in her ears.

She has to get out of here.

The problem becomes, once she starts looking around, that she doesn’t think there is a way out. She comes across a gate set in the fence that seems to surround her, but when she pulls the lever beside it, nothing happens, and even worse, the resulting noise is loud enough that she fears she’ll draw anyone—or anything—else that might be here straight to her. She can’t bring herself to run for the same reason, though, so she walks, sticks to the walls she comes across, and tries to steer clear of any more of those hooks; a disturbing number of them dot the landscape around her.

There’s a large central building, a house so rotted she’s surprised it’s even standing, and it seems as safe a place as any, though everything in her screams danger, wants to go back to the corner she’d originally found herself in and curl up there, hoping her dark clothes will be camouflage enough. For lack of anything else to do, she starts to make her way towards it, only to stop when she comes across something else out of place—an engine of sorts, pushed up against one of the wooden walls, dim flashing lights on top of it. It looks broken, just like everything else here, but there’s something that draws her to it, makes her want to get closer. She doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it, but that’s a problem for when she reaches it.

When she’s only a few steps away, though, she’s stopped—by a hand on her arm yanking her back, and another covering her mouth when she screams. “ _Shut up_ ,” the person holding her whispers. “Do you want to get us both killed?” She shakes her head as much as she can, considering how tight the fingers across her mouth are, and the stranger lets up. “So you won’t scream again when I let go?” Another shake of the head, a sigh that comes from behind her, and then the arms fall away and the warmth of another person at her back is gone. Claudette doesn’t turn to face them, though; if she sees another person here, that means it’s real, and she doesn’t know if she can handle that.

“You almost stepped in a trap.” The stranger stands next to her, and all Claudette can see from her angle, staring down at the ground, is a pair of running shoes and bruised calves, covered by leggings halfway up. When she looks in front of her, though, she tenses, because—whoever that is, they’re right, and there’s an open bear trap on the ground, so well-hidden in the tall grass around the generator that she wouldn’t have seen it if they hadn’t stopped her.

“Thank you,” she whispers, afraid to raise her voice any more than that. She pinches the bottom of her shirt between her fingers. “Who are you?”

The stranger, when they finally make eye contact, has a serious face, red hair in braids pulled away from her face. “Meg,” she whispers back, her gaze darting around at all the possible spots where someone could see them—could come towards them. “You?”

“I—” The idea of telling this person her name feels ridiculous. Why should it matter right now. But she was the one who had asked first. “Claudette.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Claudette.” Meg is the first one to reach the generator, stepping around the primed trap until she can kneel down at its side. “Now are you going to help me fix this thing or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't going to be a super-long one but there will be another chapter! since the idea i had in mind fit for two different febuwhump prompts, i wanted to split it into two chapters


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. here we are again lol. prompt for this one was "run. don't look back" -bel

“Fix it?” She’s certain the disbelief in her voice is evident, even as she does as Meg asked and kneels down on the generator’s other side, From this position, all Claudette can see of her is the top of her head, and that, too, disappears after a moment as Meg ducks down to examine the thing. It’s completely foreign to Claudette, the way the parts fit together—anything to do with machines, really, has always been a mystery to her—but if Meg thinks it will help…well, it’s not as though she has any other ideas.

“Yeah.” Claudette sees a spark across from her, and gingerly reaches for a couple of loose wires on her own side. She finds, surprisingly, that if she doesn’t think about it too much, the movements come naturally to her. Just one more reason that whatever’s going on here is horribly wrong. “I saw this—gate thing, in the fence, but it didn’t work when I tried to open it. I think maybe this will power it.”

“I saw one too.” She tries to keep her eyes on what she can see of Meg from her vantage point; it makes it easier not to overthink things. “And I think you might be right. But—do you have any idea where we even _are?_ ”

Meg shakes her head, and Claudette can see her braids moving with her. “I was on a run, in the woods near my house, and then all of a sudden I’m here. That’s all I know. Same thing happen to you?”

“Waiting for the bus, not running.” She thinks she hears Meg chuckle, and she flushes at the sound—only because it’s out of place here. Certainly not for any other reason. “But yeah, I was just…here all of a sudden. And you’re the only other person I’ve seen.”

“I ran into a couple of guys over there.” Meg lifts one hand to point vaguely at the field behind Claudette. “It was their idea to try fixing these generators. They’re _everywhere_. I told them I’d try to find another one to work on. God knows how many it’ll take to power that stupid door.” Claudette’s heart sinks as Meg speaks; as glad as she is to know they’re not alone in here, if they have to fix all of these to get the door open, and something else is here with them laying traps…it’s all too easy for her to go into a panic, to slip up, and before she even realizes what’s happening her hand slips on the generator and it explodes in her face—it doesn’t hurt her, but the noise it makes is loud enough that she has no doubt everyone here will have heard it.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Meg hisses, jumping to her feet. “We need to go. I’m sure we can find another one of these without much trouble.”

Claudette nods as she stands, brushes her hands off on her pant legs, and makes to follow Meg out of this little corner—but she forgot about the _fucking_ trap, and she can’t help but scream as it bites into her leg, as she feels rivulets of blood spill down her skin. Meg halts, turns around with her hand pressed over her own mouth this time, and after a second’s hesitation, runs back. “Can we get it open?” she mumbles, more to herself than to Claudette, fingers in the jaws of the trap to try and pry them apart, but all it does is tear the skin on her own fingers, her blood mixing with Claudette’s. Wincing at the way she has to shift her weight to balance on her other leg, Claudette reaches down and grabs Meg’s wrist, stopping her.

“You said there are others here, right? If they heard that, maybe they can come over here and—” She’s cut off by what she thinks at first is the sound of her own panicked heartbeat pulsing in her ears, but if it’s her, it shouldn’t be getting louder. A glance up at Meg tells her that she’s not the only one who hears it, and then—footsteps behind her, and Meg backing up rapidly, staring wide-eyed at someone behind her.

Claudette turns her head, and immediately wishes she hadn’t.

There’s—she doesn’t know if she can even call it a man, because though it looks like a human, she’s never seen someone this tall and broad, and his face is covered by a terrifying mask, grinning at them, and—there are bits of metal sticking out of his skin, so many that it should have killed him. He’s got a closed trap in one hand identical to the one her leg is currently caught in, and in the other, a cleaver that he’s raising as he stares at them.

She doesn’t scream this time, to her credit, but she’s about five seconds away from throwing up as every fear she had about the situation doesn’t seem so far-fetched. “Claudette,” Meg says softly, as though the man won’t be able to hear them. “What do we do?”

Claudette doesn’t get a chance to answer before the machete bites into her side with such force that it knocks her over, wrenching her leg in the trap as she yells. “Run,” she says through gritted teeth. “Don’t look back. Find—” The others, she wants to say, but doesn’t—maybe they haven’t run into them yet. But Meg understands, and she nods, and as she turns and sprints away, faster than Claudette thought, she can only hope that her death will be relatively painless.

Looking back, it’s all she can do not to laugh at herself for thinking such a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how i said i wasn't sure i wanted to write more dbd until i finish some other wips...i'm a liar sksksksksk. definitely won't rule out the possibility of doing more of this in the future if i come up with any more ideas lol. also it was originally supposed to be the other way around for who got caught in the trap, but the whole premise of my other dbd fic is 'meg gets injured' so i thought i'd be nice to her for once


End file.
